Court Cuts Tax Liability For Turner

April 13, 1985|By Selwyn Crawford of The Sentinel Staff

A U.S. Tax Court judge has ruled that entrepreneur Glenn Turner owes taxes on only $120,000 instead of $1.3 million in additional income for three years. The Internal Revenue Service wanted Turner and his former wife, Alice, to pay taxes on what it said was $1.3 million in unreported income from 1969, 1970 and 1971.

Holger Euringer, a spokesman in the IRS district office in Jacksonville, said it is deciding whether to appeal. If the IRS doesn't appeal, the Turners could face late-filing penalties if taxes on the $120,000 in additional income were not paid when it was originally due, he said.

In the ruling, which was handed down in Tampa earlier this month, the judge found that the Turners were ''credible witnesses'' and that previous testimony by them had been true. The judge ruled that advances of $430,082 to Turner from his Koscot cosmetics company were non-taxable loans; that $608,324 spent on land in Seminole County was used for business purposes; and that $296,677 in a special bank account was lent to a departing officer of the company.

Turner, 50, built a Maitland business empire worth millions in the early 1970s through aggressive sales techniques, only to be slapped with lawsuits and other legal action by unhappy investors and state and federal authorities. He faces a 126-count indictment brought by an Arizona grand jury last month. The indictment charges that 24 people were defrauded by promises of incomes of $2,000 to $3,000 a month if they invested in a company founded by Turner and two other men.